By: Josmat Jerry
There is no gain saying that the country is in a pitiable state after her 60th Independence, while the fact still remains that the state of the nation is ironic when placed sideways with the foresight and goals of her pacesetters sixty years ago. Being a third world – underdeveloped – nation for the past years has been a voyage that’s so sad and also, tough to explain when one consider the bountiful quantity of natural endowments the country parades. Nigeria is actually a nation that has to herself prayerful inhabitants, irrespective of their religion. With the charge of alarms here and there to venture into prayer for a better Nigeria, will prayers then come in to rescue, or just by simple logic?
Being tagged prayerful goes all the way to the act of religious figures of the nation; based on statistics, Nigeria is the most prayerful nation in the world with 95% of her citizens exercising daily prayers, while the country is only followed by the likes of India and Brazil (Source – Pulse.ng). In a realistic view, how has our religious inclination helped us? If it has done anything at all, it is the contribution to the division among us. Basically, there is no source or research that depicts religious countries more prosperous than ‘irreligious’ ones. It’s therefore a stance of a collective consciousness to analyse if our sixty years of praying for a better Nigeria has been fruitful.
Most developed countries came into position through good policy and proper planning by their government; they didn’t just sit at the power house and invite Clerics, Imams, Pastors or Idol Worshippers to come exhibit their prayer radicalism before goodies came into limelight. Why is South Korea more developed than North Korea? Why is USA better than Mexico? The answer is the difference in the policy direction each of them runs. Countries like Japan, China, Norway, Denmark, who are developed nations aren’t prayerful nor are they religious countries. These countries have come into power as first class states through critical thinking, application of logics and proper implementation of policies.
Nigeria was more prosperous than South Korea, China, Malaysia and Singapore in 1960, what went wrong? What made these nations overtake us? It’s obviously not prayers, but a well processed thinking backed up with logistics via implementations in government. Moreover, if prayers really work in this occasion, our careless political class would have mismanaged our prayers. We have got a government that close borders on rice importation even when it known that the local rice is of low quality and can’t sustain the entire country bringing an increase in price. Prayer isn’t going to bring down the price of rice, no bag of rice is coming from the sky, and there is a need to make policies towards acting it right.
Heavens they say only help those who help themselves, prayers can only work when the right act has been laid upright and put in place. You can’t expect positive result when you don’t make a better plan of activities. Having a government that waste resources on irrelevant things, and expect development at the end is like sowing beans and with the expectation to reap rice; it’s neither that simple nor works that way. The problems and worries of this nation are man-made, and can only be resolved by man through his personal brilliancy backed by prayers. Spirituality inputs should be set aside.
Lots of wrongs had been swaying heads-high in the country which still hinders the holy prayers being offered by saints in the nation. The government have been stiffening business leading to job loss, the matter of educational sector degrades as the clock ticks, the insecurity of lives and properties, the high rate of poverty, depreciation of naira value, the high increase in price of goods and services and lot more. Until these wrongs are put to right, no prayer is going to bring forth golden days. There is a need for logistic plans to make the country a happy place for all.
According to Chinua Achebe, “the problem with Nigeria is a failure of Leadership “. Until the nation possesses right minds that are of leadership quality, then we are set for a better nation. When there’s a presence of the right people in power, they’ll implement workable policies. No one prays without acting right, prayer with vibrant lay out plans are of necessity to getting it right and not ‘prayer alone’.
